Meetings of the conferences of the parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions

Geneva, Switzerland from 24 April to 05 May 2017

Summary of outcomes: The thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention (BC COP-13), the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention (RC COP-8) and the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention (SC COP-8) were held back to back from 24 April to 5 May 2017. The meetings also featured a high-level segment that was held on the afternoon of Thursday, 4 May and the morning of Friday, 5 May 2017. The theme of the meetings and the high-level segment was "A future detoxified: sound management of chemicals and waste". The meetings included joint sessions among two or three of the conferences of the parties on joint issues.

The meetings, attended by about 1,400 participants, as well as as well as 80 Ministers, from 170 countries, adopted more than 60 separate decisions, including six identical ones for the three meetings on: International cooperation and coordination, enhancing cooperation and coordination among the three conventions, clearing-house mechanism for information exchange, mainstreaming gender, synergies in preventing and combating illegal traffic and trade in hazardous chemicals and wastes, and “from science to action”.

Thanks to voluntary contributions from the European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, financial support was provided to the participation of developing country Parties and Parties that are countries with economies in transition to attend the meetings.

Report of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade on the work of its eighth meeting